Page 11 of Born in Ruin

Everyone froze.

“Now would be the time to congratulate us, folks,” Ishaan grimaced, wrapping an arm around Mayukhi’s waist as if to comfort her. “You guys are acting exactly like my idiot friends. Disapproving and stupid. Don’t tell me you’re going to stop talking to Yukhi too.”

Naveen barked out a laugh. “They’re not talking to you? What are you guys, five?”

“Exactly,” Ishaan said derisively. “They’re being whiny, little shits. Just like you, assholes.”

“Really Yukhi?” Ashish drawled. “Him? You’re that desperate?”

Ishaan stiffened. “Careful,” he drawled.

Mayukhi shifted, the palm on his chest patting him in a soothing gesture. “Easy tiger,” she laughed, slow and sultry. “We don’t need anybody’s stamp of approval. If we want to be together, then we’ll be together. And Ash-“

She glanced over her shoulder to where Ashish was glowering at her. “Just because I said no to you, doesn’t mean you have the right to shit all over whoever I say yes to.”

Ishaan laughed. “So, this is sour grapes then. Too bad man.” His gaze dropped to Mayukhi’s blood red lips. “I’ve got her now and I’m not giving her up.”

And then, he had no idea why, he completely lost his mind. Even as his mind screamed in horror, Ishaan bent his head and kissed the Kraken.

SIX

Mayukhi

He was kissing her. The world around Mayukhi went silent, the confused noise in her head quieting in empathy.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. This was not supposed to happen.

Not like this.

Not with him.

Mayukhi could still feel the animosity they shared, the hateful words they’d exchanged crackling like a drug in her bloodstream, a wildfire that neither of them were willing to put out. She could still hear the sharpness of her own words, the bite in his reply. He infuriated her—always had. Ishaan, with his smug smirks, his relentless comebacks, his stupid, unreadable eyes.

And yet?—

Yet, somehow, she was pressed against him, her fingers curled into his shirt, her breath coming too fast, too uneven.

And he was kissing her.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t soft. It was fire meeting fire, a clash of willpower, of stubbornness, of everything unspoken boiling over at once. His lips were just as insistent as his spiteful words had been, and Mayukhi hated—hated—that she was meeting him with the same desperation.

She should push him away.

She should slap him, say something cutting, remind him that she despised him.

But her body betrayed her.

Her hands fisted tighter in his shirt, pulling him in instead of shoving him back. His fingers tangled in her hair, tilting her head back, and a shiver ran down her spine as heat pooled low in her stomach. She gasped against his mouth, and he swallowed the sound, pulling her closer, as if he could burn the fight right out of her.

This was dangerous.

This was reckless.

This wasIshaan.

And yet, in this moment, with his lips claiming hers, with the world spinning beneath her feet, she couldn’t remember why that was supposed to matter.

Ishaan was the first to pull away, a ragged breath escaping him before he wrapped his hand in her hair and pulled her close, his forehead resting on hers, his eyes tightly shut. Mayukhi’s composure lay in tatters around her, as she gripped the wrist of the hand Ishaan had tangled in her hair and struggled to control her breathing.

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